How to Broadcast Seed in a Field

This method was taught to me by a Mentor and friend who grew up on a wheat farm in Jordan and has been farming or gardening for a total of 38 years....

The following is especially about planting clover and favas or lentils for nitrogen fixing in building up soil for growing veggie food crops.

-- When broadcasting seed by hand, the motion is sideways from waist high, and opening your hand as you move from back to front, and opening your hand like a fan from top fingers to bottom. The motion is similar to casting a fisherman's net. When you get in the groove with it, you'll see the seed fan out like a fisherman's net, instead of going out in sprays. This will help get an even spread.

-- Where you stand over or in front of or below or next to the berm is not important. What matters is that fisherman's net spreading method. Nice and smooth, and when you've got the motion down you'll feel it.

-- Densely planted clover sprouts and seedlings will be competitive with each other, for nutrients and moisture and root space. When one little clover grows bigger than another next to it, and its leaves start to spread out over the smaller one that isn't growing as quickly, there will be some competition also for sun.

-- A good practice is to take soil that has been sitting outside for a long time, i.e. not bagged from a store - soil which has gained some density or weight over time, and mix the seed 50-50 with the soil before broadcasting by hand. This helps ensure an even spread, and helps hold the seed down.

-- Intentionally overplanting is definitely very helpful for adding nitrogen and building up soil prior to a fresh planting of veggie food plants.

-- Since (a) clover seed is small, a little bigger than sesame seed, not as big as lentils, and (b) we're watering and not just depending on rain, the way to plant the clover seeds on the fine-mulch berms is to not use the soil, but just send out handfuls of clover seeds as evenly as possible. Mentor suggests moistening the planting area the day before broadcasting the seed, then watering over the seed after it goes in. I think that, since we're planting into mulch and not soil, and the moisture on top of the berms seems to evaporate quickly from day to day, we might decide to lightly moisten the soil in the morning and then broadcast the seeds in the afternoon on the same day, and then water over the seeds. The moisture will help hold the seeds in place on the berms.

-- Lentils can be planted east, west, north, south, whatever. When rain is the only method of delivering moisture, the practice is to plant the lentils where there will be little valleys or troughs to collect the moisture that comes in. When we're watering by hand, we can broadcast lentils wherever we like, with the fisherman's net hand motion described above.

-- If we're just going for nitrogen fixing with lentils, we can use bulk lentils. Do not count on these propagating wonderfully to future generations, just as you wouldn't get great cantoloupes planting seeds from store bought cantaloupes. But for a nice healthy plant that will grow up to a full 15 to 18 inches, bulk lentils are fine.

-- Bulk favas can work though planting quality favas with inoculant might work better. Some of the favas might not come up from our planting. I've found some that have come up to the surface, I planted some too far down, etc. We might want to use bulk favas to fill in once we see if those come up in patches or not. On the other hand, as long as we have great seed and great inoculant, yee hah. And no worries about my investing in seed - learning by experience is always a great way to remember things.

-- Lentils: mix 50-50 with dirt in hand, broadcast, should get density of 4-5 per hand print. Density of favas at 6 inches is good. Can also grow garbanzos for nitrogen. Lentils - not sure if red or green better for nitrogren. Can use bulk from Rainbow if growing for nitrogen only - if want the plants to produce propagation quality seed then start with good selected seed ordered specially - but for one generation only nitrogen fixing bulk from store is good. Not sure how garbanzos grow out, we can ask - research. He said the lentils don't grow tall - they're 15-18 inches high, bushy, with leaves and pods.

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